This man is one of the officially lincensed
streat peformers of Tokyo.
(This picture was taken at Yoyogi park)
Until last year, street peformers were (strictly
speaking,) illegal in most places.
They had only limited occasions to perform.
But the present governor of Tokyo proposed
an ordinance
to offer far more occasion and places for
them to perform
(to make Tokyo a happier city!)
This man is a traditional style story teller.
In my parents' childhood, a little after
the World War II,
this "picture card showing" was
the biggest entertainment
for children. We call it Kami-shibai (paper
play) in Japanese.
I found a nice website about it so check
this out later!
http://www.kamishibai.com/
Kamishibai story tellers are very very VERY
eloquent all the time!!
Expression of his face and tone of his voice
tells quite a lot of things
with one picture.(One story usually consists
of several pictures)
When Masaki and I happened to find him in
the park, there were already
several audience in front of him.
Two of them were white men and they were
friends.
(it seems they didn't understand Japanese
and they were just looking)
As they left, one of them said to the other
"gees, crazy Manzai(comic dialogue)..."
obviously shaking his head in disgust.
I should have told them that his performance
is not something
they can criticize without knowing our culture
or history background...
Anyway, I thought I should introduce it here
so at least the
visitors to my website can understand what
it is if they
happen to have a chance to see these story
telling in Japan : )
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